Ben & Jerry's - Chocolate Peppermint Crunch

Chocolate Peppermint Crunch - Chocolate Ice Cream with Peppermint & Fudge Swirls & Mint Chocolate Cookie Balls

Here we continue with the theme where every other review is a pint in the Mint Chip/Peppermint Bon Bon family.  (The pints I have reviewed in between have acted as palate cleansers).  Today's flavor is Chocolate Peppermint Crunch which was introduced by Ben & Jerry's in 2013 as basically the standard Mint Chip flavor turned on its head.  Instead of a peppermint ice cream with chocolate add-ins, this is a chocolate ice cream with mint (and chocolate) add-ins.

Opening the pint, you see the dark brown of a chocolate ice cream base.  You also brown bubbles of the fudge swirl.  You even little white spots from the peppermint swirl?  Digging into the pint, the effect of the fudge swirl in the chocolate base is that it creates a gooier base.  This also causes the mint swirl to blend in more.  The white color is more noticeable in the attached photos than I recalled while eating the pint.  That also helped the mint swirl blend into the base better, so that the mint flavor was noticeable in every spoonful.  It is not as gooey as Phish Food with its marshmallow and caramel swirls, but it is quite a bit softer than the average pint.

Then to offset the gooey effect of the swirls, crunchy mint chocolate cookie balls are included.  These are generously dispersed throughout the pint.  They feel like mint-chocolate crutons - that's a fairly precise description of the crunchy texture of these cookie balls.  Of course, the cookie balls served as another way of injecting mint flavor into the pint.

I must admit that I prefer the standard Mint Chocolate Cookie or Mint Chip to this flavor.  Still, if you're a big Mint Chip fan and you want try a unique twist on this flavor combination, then give this a try and see if its for you.